Announcing Landscapes & Horizons
 Call for Applications

We are excited to announce a new Cove Park residency developed in partnership with Luminate, Scotland’s creative ageing organisation, and Cross Borders at Scottish Refugee Council. 

Landscapes & Horizons is a new fully funded group residency for five Scotland-based artists and cultural practitioners aged over 40 and from refugee and other migrant backgrounds.

This one-week group residency will begin on 26 February 2024 and is for artists and cultural practitioners who need space, time, care, and reflection for their creative development. We are particularly keen to support applicants who have not accessed this kind of opportunity before, and have faced barriers due to their age, care commitments and/or asylum or immigration status.

Landscapes & Horizons is designed for those who were already working as artists or community organisers with a focus upon arts and cultural projects. The residency is also open to those who weren’t able to pursue their practice in their home country for fear of harassment or persecution. It provides a week of creative activity, workshops, and events, offering time for each resident to pursue their own interests and to take part in group projects. 

The deadline for applications is Monday 27 November 2023. Further information and details of how to apply are available here. 

Image: Amber, an interactive performance documenting artists Paria Goodarzi and Francisco Llinas Casas walking 23 miles from Dungavel Immigration Removal centre in Strathaven to the Home Office in Glasgow to mark the 70th anniversary of the UN Convention on Refugees (photography, Paul Chappells).

Material Futures Residencies Announced

In July we announced Material Futures, a new programne supported by The Fenton Arts Trust for visual artists working with or developing sustainable materials and approaches as a key aspect of their work. Following an open call for applications, we are delighted to announce that the inaugural Material Futures Residencies have been awarded to the UK-based artists Monya Riachi and Niamh Schmidtke. 

Material Futures Residencies take place in December 2023 and we look forward to welcoming both artists.

Images: Above, Niamh Schmidtke, Ode to Minerology- Pyrite in the TU Berlin Mineralogical collections (2023), courtesy of the artist; below, Monya Riachi, Where Bougainvilleas Bloom Ceaselessly (detail, photography by Chih-Kang Hsu).

Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize
Residency Announcement

We are delighted to be one of three international residencies hosting awardees of the Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize. This international prize was created by the City of Porto, Portugal, in tribute to its late Councillor for Culture Paulo Cunha e Silva (1962 – 2015), a central figure for the city’s artistic life. The award, which takes place every two years in Porto, recognises the talent of new generations of national and international artists. 

Nine artists were nominated for the Prize by an international jury: artist Ângela Ferreira, Jan van Eyck Academie Director Hicham Khalidi, and cultural programmer Tabitha Thorlu-Banguraand. An exhibition of work by the selected artists was held at Galeria Municipal do Porto in the summer this year. This year’s edition underlines the Prize’s commitment to fostering creation and cultural exchange by establishing a partnership with three international residencies: Arquipélago Centro de Artes in S. Miguel, Azores, Pivô, in São Paulo, and Cove Park. 

We are delighted to announce the recipient of the Cove Park residency is Luis M S Santos. Based in Mozambique, Luis was selected for this residency by an international panel including artist, former resident, and Cove Park Associate Ciara Phillips. More information on Luis' work is available in the jury's statement.

We look forward to welcoming Luis to Cove Park next year and would like to thank colleagues in Porto for making this residency possible.

Image: Luis M. S. Santos (photography,: Sara Carneiro)

Creative Residencies for Carers

We are pleased to share some very good news. In September Cove Park received an award from the Creative Breaks funding programme of the Short Breaks Fund, operated by Shared Care Scotland on behalf of Scottish Government.

This award allows Cove Park to offer short creative residencies for unpaid carers who have, or who have had, a creative practice or career, but now find it difficult to dedicate time to this important aspect of their lives. Taking place on our 50-acre rural site, the residencies will combine the acknowledged benefits to wellbeing and mental health of being in a peaceful rural location, with taking part in enjoyable creative activities. The carers will have time for themselves, time to pursue their interests with others in the group, and the opportunity to visit local cultural attractions.

Further details on this programme, and a call for applications to take part, will be announced soon. If you would like further information, please contact Programmes & Communications Producer Alex Marrs directly.

Image: Studio at Cove Park (photography, Tracey Bloxhan)

ViceVersa Residents Announced

Following a call for applications earlier this year, we are delighted to announce the participants in the ViceVersa Translation Workshop for literary translators from English to German and German to English. The residency takes place in November and supports five translators working in each direction, providing an opportunity to present and discuss the specific texts they are working on. This one-week workshop will be led by Katy Derbyshire and Tanja Handels. The participants and their translation projects are as follows:

Florian Bissig: Jack Kerouac, Mexico City Blues (prose poems)
Barbara Christ: Simon Stephens, A Dark, Dark, Dark Blue (drama)
Ingo Herzke: A.L. Kennedy, The Road of Loving Hearts (novel)
Sharon Howe: Ulrike Draesner, Die Verwandelten (novel)
Anna-Christin Kramer: Sarah Gilmartin, Service (novel)
Anne Posten: Ilse Aichinger, Der Bastard (short story)
Anna v. Rath: Francesca Ekwuyasi, Butter Honey Pig Bread (novel)
Bradley Schmidt: Elina Penner, Nachtbeeren (novel)
Imogen Taylor: Gabriele Reuter, Ellen von der Weiden (novel)
Rachel Ward: Simone Buchholz, Knastpralinen (crime novel)

This programme is organised by TOLEDO, a programme of the Deutscher Übersetzerfonds and supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media (Germany), in collaboration with Cove Park and Goethe Institut Glasgow.

Image: ViceVersa, Deutsch-BKMS Tribalj/Kroatien, 2019, Luka Godec.

Food Ecologies: Design Residency 2024
Call for Applications

Food Ecologies is a residency exchange programme, launched in 2022, between Scotland and Sweden. The call for applications to the residency in 2024 is aimed at artistic practitioners, based in Sweden, working around the politics and economics of food, with a focus on design and the development and implementation of just, circular and sustainable practises.

Food Ecologies was initiated and organised collaboratively by Cove Park, IASPIS - International Programme for Visual & Applied Arts and Linnaeus University's Design + Change department, co-founded by IASPIS and British Council through the Circular Cultures programme. Our first Food Ecologies resident in 2022 was Una Hallgrímsdóttir and we look forward to welcoming a second resident from Sweden in January next year.

Further information and details of how to apply for Sweden-based applicants is available here and the deadline for applications is 6 November 2023.

Images: above, Cove Park's Jacobs Building (photography, Tracey Bloxham); below, Una Hallgrímsdóttir, recipient of the first Food Ecologies Residency at Cove Park. 

Musical Theatre Writing Residency
Imminent Deadline: 20 October at 5pm

We are thrilled to announce a new residency for musical theatre writers taking place from 4-17 March 2024. The Musical Theatre Writing Residency is a two-week international exchange programme for emerging and established book writers, composers, and lyricists from the UK, India, and the United States. 

Co-led by Cove Park and Dundee Rep, this residency has been devised by Andrew Panton, Artistic Director of Dundee Rep, and will include facilitated sessions with Dramaturg Jeanie O’Hare, Music Supervisor Nigel Lilley, Artistic Director of Goodspeed Musicals, Donna Lynn Hilton, and Artistic Director of Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, David Greig. The programme also includes networking opportunities and workshops, in-person and digital, with industry professionals – such as director John Doyle, Broadway producers Mara Isaacs and Rashad V. Chambers, and more.

Applications to take part in this residency are being accepted from UK-based teams of up to three collaborators who have a musical theatre idea in need of development and would benefit from the residency experience to take it to the next stage in its creation. The participating artists from India and the United States will be selected separately through nominations from our international partners.

Visit the Musical Theatre Writing Residency website for more information and how to apply. Applications are open until 20 October 2023. 

The Musical Theatre Writing Residency is presented by Cove Park and Dundee Rep Theatre in partnership with Capital Theatres, Citizens Theatre, Macrobert Arts Centre, National Centre for the Performing Arts – Mumbai, National Theatre of Scotland, Octopus Theatricals – New York City, Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, and Traverse Theatre. Associate partners include A Play, A Pie and a Pint, Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Playwrights’ Studio Scotland, and Tron Theatre.

This pilot residency is majority-funded as part of the British Council & Creative Scotland Partnership: Connect & Collaborate.

Images; Above, Octopus Theatricals, Re-opening Night of Hadestown on Broadway, photography by Emilio Madrid-Kuser. Dundee Rep, Co-Lead with Cove Park on the Musical Theatre Writing Residency.

Subsidised Winter Residencies 2024
Call for Applications Now Live

We are pleased to announce details of our popular annual programme of Subsidised Winter Residencies in 2024.

Cove Park offers residencies for individuals, groups, and organisations with their own funding to take part in our annual programme. We welcome artists, cultural practitioners, writers, and researchers - from every creative and academic discipline - able to fund a residency via the direct support of their own academic institutions or through awards from public funders or foundations.

Cove Park's Subsidised Winter Residencies will take place during January, February, and March 2024. During this time we are pleased to offer a reduction on the cost of individual and collaborative residencies. Applications for these residencies can be submitted on a rolling basis from Friday 22 September 2023 until 4 March 2024, in the hope that those interested will have the time required to request funding from their own organisations or external funding agencies. Further information and details of how to apply for a subsidised residency is available here.

Image: Taransay and Oak Pods (photography, Bonnie MacRae)

Body Remedy at Cove Park

We look forward to welcoming Body Remedy in November for forming ecology – a pilot residency and special day event as part of their 2023 programme Body Element. 

Body Remedy, based in Glasgow, is an organisation that centres physical practice for self-recovery. Contributors and participants of Body Remedy are black people and people of colour (BPOC) who identify as women and non-binary. They organise as a small team led by founder and former Cove Park resident Mele Broomes in collaboration with Lead Producer Zoë Zo Tumika.

The Body Remedy 2023 programme, Body Element, reflects on how the 'weather' and 'climate' are embodied. During forming ecology, Body Remedy participants will be invited to reflect on the effects of the climate on their bodies and their lands through activities such as Body Restoration led by Mele Broomes, a talk on fermentation by Tatenda, and more.

This event is also an opportunity for Body Remedy’s advisory group, research group, and selected artists to come together as a [forming] ecology. To learn more, visit Body Remedy. 

Image: Body Remedy, forming ecology. 

'On Clogger Lane', Andrew Black
Cove Burgh Hall, Saturday 18 November

We are excited to support LUX Scotland's presentation of former resident Andrew Black’s Margaret Tait Award commission ​‘On Clogger Lane’ (2023) at Cove Burgh Hall on Saturday 18 November.

‘On Clogger Lane’ tells the story of a depopulated valley on ancient land. The film follows routes through a dammed, drowned and depopulated valley in Northern England, exploring the infrastructures of capital on land overshadowed by a monstrous satellite surveillance station, submerged beneath reservoirs, haunted by accusations of witchcraft, and populated by indecipherable prehistoric carvings and the graves of child labourers. Incorporating conversations with farmers, antiquarians, dowsers, grandmothers, Quakers, landowners and communists alongside an improvisational score,​‘On Clogger Lane’ is an experimental documentary which navigates the chaotic mix of passivity and protest, public and private, past and present, all coincident in the same patch of ancient countryside.

For more information and to reserve your free ticket, please visit the LUX Scotland website.

Image: Andrew Black, 'On Clogger Lane', 2022, courtesy of the artist.

Project Studio 
Visible Music with Duncan Marquiss
Thursday 26 September, 4-6pm

The next Project Studio takes place at the Park Pavilion in Hermitage Park, Helensburgh, on Thursday 26 September from 4-6pm. Led by artist, musician, and former resident Duncan Marquiss, this workshop will explore ways of generating imagery in response to music, using simple camera, video-editing and animation techniques.  

Project Studio is a Cove Park programme for teenagers in our local area made possible with a generous award from the National Lottery Community Fund. Launched in June, Project Studio offers free monthly creative activity  - including workshops, trips, and events - centred around self-expression and creating community for teenagers interested in the arts, activism, environmentalism, and wellbeing.

This programme is supportive to young people experiencing ADHD, dyslexia, and autism. Please let us know how we can support you best.

We are pleased to share some good news: an award from The Stafford Trust will allow us to extend Project Studio and offer more events, building on the work enjoyed so far.

Book your free place here. For further information please contact Cove Park's Curator of Engagement, Emma Henderson.

Images: Above, courtesy of Duncan Marquiss; below, Duncan Marquiss at Cove Park (photography, Emma Henderson).

Saturday Studio
'Make a Meal of it' with Sean Wai Keung
Saturday 28 October 2023

Join poetry, performance and food artist Sean Wai Keung to create a meal of veggie soup with hand made naturally colourful pasta shapes. Using a large sheet of fresh pasta dough, participants can use food-dye pens and natural food colouring to write or paint directly onto the dough. The pasta shapes will be an ingredient in a soup featuring locally sourced vegetables. Sean will lead the conversation around our relationships with food and its histories, before coming together to eat the home made soup.

Two Saturday Studio workshops will take place on Saturday 28 October, the first in the morning and the second in the afternoon. Parents or carers are encouraged to stay and join, if they wish.

For more information, please visit Cove Park's Eventbrite page.

Image: Sean Wai Keung (photography, Brian Hartley)

Testing Grounds Podcast Series
Episode 6: Who Defines Progress?

What does 'progress' mean in an age of climate crisis? Who should define it? And how can the process of defining it be made more inclusive and democratic?

Narsaq International Research Station (NIRS) is NAARCA’s Greenlandic partner. It is an independent non-profit research platform with a focus on cultural and scientific research in South Greenland.

In this episode, Lise Autogena, an artist and founder of NIRS, outlines some of the tensions at play in Narsaq and in Greenland. Here, the climate crisis is dramatically disrupting everyday life, and simultaneously opening up opportunities for the exploitation of globally-prized natural resources.

Lise introduces us to our contributors, filmmaker Inuk Jørgensen and community psychologist Peter Berliner. In different but overlapping ways, Inuk and Peter are both engaged with exploring visions of 'progress' in a Greenlandic context. They explore how Inuit values can help make the process of defining progress more inclusive, respectful and productive.

In case you missed it, Cove Park's episode, Amplifying Young People's Voices on the Climate Crisis, is also now available. In this episode, Emma Henderson – Cove Park’s Curator of Engagement – introduces us to both the residency and the region, and to NAARCA’s pedagogy work. We then hear from artist Louis Brown and students Frankie O’Connor and Cameron Glendinning, both of whom recently graduated from nearby Hermitage Academy in Helensburgh. Frankie and Cameron were part of Net Zero Youth Voice, a youth-led film project initiated by Imperial College London, and facilitated by Louis, highlighting young people’s views on the climate crisis, air pollution, and Net Zero policies.

Testing Grounds is available to listen here or via your favourite podcast app. Episodes are published on the last Friday of each month. 

Images: Above, courtesy of Narsaq International Research Station; below, the Net Zero Youth Voice project at Cove Park, April 2022.